Leonardo sees her: 
Others se her: Rosie, maybe 
or Michael 
or Hippie pot smoker 
or alien 
or Monica 
or Another Jackson 
. or frowning 
or
post-Hollywood 
I guess it just depends on how you look at things.
Posted on 01/20/2007 2:57:29 PM PST by Vote 4 Nixon
ROME (AP)—The world's most famously enigmatic woman may have shed some of her mystery. An amateur historian said Friday that he has found the final resting place of the woman some believe inspired Leonardo da Vinci's most renowned painting, the "Mona Lisa.''
A death certificate shows that Lisa Gherardini—the Renaissance woman some believe was the model for the "Mona Lisa''—died on July 15, 1542, in Florence and is buried in a convent in central Florence, Giuseppe Pallanti said.
"Maybe Leonardo chose a woman like many others,'' Pallanti, a high school economics teacher in Florence, told The Associated Press. "She was not a noblewoman, or a princess. She was a family woman.''
It's not certain Gherardini, who was born in 1479 and married a rich silk merchant called Francesco del Giocondo, is the woman in the painting whose smile has inspired speculation for centuries.
Is she was smiling to "tempt a lover'' or "to hide a broken heart?'' Nat King Cole wondered in a song written in the 1950s.
Tradition links Gherardini to "La Gioconda,'' as the painting is known in Italian, because Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century artist and biographer of Leonardo and other artists, wrote that da Vinci painted a portrait of del Giocondo's wife.
Pallanti, who has written a book about the Mona Lisa, also points out that del Giocondo was a neighbor and acquaintance of the artist's father, Piero da Vinci.
"I'm not taking a stance, I'm not an art historian,'' Pallanti said. "But it's hard to believe that Vasari lied.''
Alessandro Vezzosi, a Leonardo expert and the director of a museum dedicated to the artist in his hometown of Vinci, said Pallanti is a respected researcher whose work gives interesting information on Gherardini.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
She was smiling because he told her to say Brie.
Who Cares. Now if he could find Jimmy Hoffa's resting place he would be doing something.
Leonardo sees her:
Others se her: Rosie, maybe or Michael or Hippie pot smoker or alien or Monica or Another Jackson . or frowning or
post-Hollywood
I guess it just depends on how you look at things.
Why would anyone possibly care?
She was a model or at best, the wife of a man with enough money to commission a painting of her.
She had a particular look that some think is fascinating or "mysterious".
I think she looks constipated.
Big whoop.
But art-fartsy crap never appealed that much to me anyway.
Oh well.
That's funny!
Thanks for the effort and the laugh!
Well, a little.
Well, depends on the art.
A crucifix in a jar of urine is not art.
I know that my life would be so much poorer without art.
Again, depends on the art.
But what does the bones of some long dead woman have to do with art?
Shall we raise a hullaballo over the discovery of a leaf from the tree that was used to build a priceless Stradivarius violin?
The art is the music that emanates from the violin...not the composition of the materials that was used to make the violin.
The art is in the faultless construction of the violin that enables the player to become an artist in his rendering of the music therefrom, not the sawdust created from the cutting of the wood.
When I look at the Mona Lisa, I marvel at the technique used by Da Vinci to render such images, particularly during the time period in which he painted.
What do the damn bones of the woman that may have been the subject of the artist' rendering have to do with anything artistic?
But to answer your initial inquiry...yes, art does enrich my life, but not because some curator or critic or some artsy-fartsy pansy declares it as such.
I prefer to form my own opinions on art
Those opinions do not always follow the mainstream.
I'm just an old curmudgeon with a very discerning eye for art.
But, I suppose such moldy old bones hold an appeal for someone, so, I can only state:
To each his own.
What about this possibly justifies digging her up? I hope someone digs up this guys grave after he dies.
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